“When I heard that I’d received an NEA fellowship, I let the phone drop to my lap and looked out the window. I felt lighter. I felt younger. I floated out of my body a little. I felt grateful disbelief and disbelieving gratitude. But mostly, I felt yes. Someone had read my words, separate from me, or any idea of me, and said yes. In that moment, it felt like the place where I come from, my country, had said yes. I can’t think of a better way for a nation to affirm the work of imagining we so profoundly need right now.”
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